free dog

so there, i said it
i felt it...i dreamt it...
conjuring my blood to the surface
of my canvased flesh and papered tables,
fingerpainting words i once buried
like an amnesiac dog buried bones
years before, and layed over them wide awake
and not knowing how close he was to his pain,
his solace, his joy.

but now it's done
and I want it
to burn..all of it...and bury it all again...
and move on this time, leaving it all behind
as i will come to life in a grand presentation of
reinvention, rebirth, and at last simply someone
you will understand and love and know that
even with nothing else but the dirty clothes on my back...i am enough.

I said...what
i needed to...now I burn
                               bury
                               forgive
                               and
                               walk

to the next destination,
like a dog...once again,
that everyone thinks is lost
but he is only
free. 

M street

I didn't go to my new job today, of hustling
invisible packages of fun to the lost and naive.
wait, did i just say that?  admitting to a scam?
truth is i don't even know what it is or was
but what i do know is there was no gaurantee
of payment...just of hope that they were on the up
and up...and for today i couldn't handle that.
my head was someplace else, trying to wake up...
trying to come alive and be somebody...
somebody new, somebody else, somebody
that resembles me, but has a steady income
and a daughter who lives in the same house,
the same town, the same state...
someone with a home instead of just his imagination
that will have to do for now...
I remembered a few years ago i took my car
in to get fixed to some garage somewhere deep
in the valley, and a fifty something year old female
lesbian sage mechanic, besides giving me a great deal
on my vehicular issues, directed me to a coffee house
on M street that was magic she said...and it would change my life.
and so I went there...and sat
and sat...
and waited...
came back the next day even...
but still no magic...
that i could see anyway...then i stopped going
and even left town...a few more detours in a life that
i am so ready to stop and smell the same flowers
and even coffee, on the same damn corner
for awhile, if only she were here too...my little dreamer hero.
today, a few years later I returned to give the magic
coffee shop another chance...on the possibillity that maybe
i just simply did not give it enough time...
so i went back
to write things...and maybe even poetry.
and there you were
sitting in the far corner of the magic coffee shop
looking so familiar...writing...
seeming to be quite animated with the story in front of you,
or maybe you were trading instant messages
with a lover or a friend...or your
mother...but no matter what it was, your eye was twitching...
and i stared...because that is my disiese;
to stare at any living beautiful interesting female faces like
they are paintings on a wall, or a movie carrying me away to someplace else
but of course is incapable of catching me in my sickness of getting lost
or maybe found in them since they are not human...
but reality sometimes creeps in, and as it did...i was caught,
and then she gathered her belongings and stories and left.
and i sat still, patiently waiting for another familiar painting
or flash of light through cellular love to come alive and
subliminally whisper secrets that I've waited for
all these years...
but then it happened...
she returned
and we talked
all day
and i will rest easier tonight
since i was able to at last make a real moment more alive than art...
but yet the truth is she didnt come back...
but this is my pencil
and my paper
and my art
and yes even my rules
and whether it's life or art
i don't care...
it's still alive
and the only me i know today
so it will have to do for now...
and that is where our story begins
thankful for the advice of a sage mechanic in the valley
as i sit in the middle of the magic coffee shop
on M street....about to finally believe.

falling manifestations (& fairy tales)

where is the man, that I'm not supposed
to pay attention to...behind the curtain,
to give me my testimonial to prove i have
had all along what i thought was missing?
i drove to malibu over the weekend
to sit at the seaside market
and read self help books
and breathe in the same air
as the rich and successful
families and lovers and
and even some other wanderers
to see if that would change me.
to see if the air itself could be my
testimonial and even speak to me
in the form of a pigeon or
some other spirit that looks like
a wise old man or a muse from
further down a road
that i have yet to see the end of.
i read all day and overheard
blended conversations
of strangers with no worries
hoping they would cough on me
and it would be contagious.
i got up for a moment to
journey across the way
in search of a bathroom
being stopped by chartities
looking for money.
had to tell them I was just passing through.
not a local.
not able to help them today,
that i was just pretending i was from there
so if they would take a pretend donation
i could indeed do that.
suddenly i found the marketplace
not at all what i was searching for.
Not Oz or pretend wise old men
to show me what i had all along...
i wanted wonderland, which i guess it's easy to
confuse the two...modern fairytales.
I was looking for my own...
so i ran down the road
after imaginary white rabbits
in the form of range rovers and porsches
and came to a tree.
and i climbed
thinking I could climb
high enough to see my wonderland,
but it was too hard to climb.
thought if i got high enough
i could leap and fly to my
wonderland...
but dammit no matter how many pages
of self help books i read
i do not have wings...after all.
no matter how much i believe
in fairy tales and impossible dreams
at the end of the day i am still me.
i am still me?
I thought that was the whole point.
to find me...
maybe i already found me.
am i my own wizard?
and then i did the most boring obvious thing
i could think of
because i was worn out from trying too damn hard
to be original.
intead of just simply myself.
I went to the place where the waves meet the sand
and dug a hole.
and as i looked up to the bluffs and saw
a canary yellow beach house
that i swore would be mine one day soon,
i imagined a rabbit jumping down the hole...
and i followed..
and i fell
and i didnt think
and nothing could stop me
as gravity became my craft
to freedom and a me that
was born for wonderland
but for so many years
i was holding on too tight
for dear life
not accepting
that the only way
to truly know yourself
is to fall...
(and as i fell i remembered digging holes with you and planting magic sticks that would root and create paths to wonderland...dear you, go find one and i will meet you there and we will beat the dragons together...and then we will go have hot chocolate and dream in the canary yellow beach house that i still can see as i fall..and wait..and love...and hold you from afar...)
and love...

love triangle in berlin

the camera rolled
on what seemed to be a rehearsal of some sort.
a string quartet set the mood
on a stage with lights up on a hollow house.
no audience besides the skeleton crew
being careful to pretend they almost
don't exist so the performers can. exist.
so they can play with intimacy
and a quiet simple aching love
for what is about to take place.
the scene was being set with
a singer who lit her torch
like a billie holiday joni mitchell love child
saying her final words before setting herself
or maybe someone else on fire.
in the background there was a man
wearing a simple garb of leather and denim
a bit like james dean had he not died...
had he straggled on to later years.
he looked in a mirror while applying
white face and watching the music be played
and tried not to act like he was being filmed
and tried not to act like the hair on his arm was standing up
and tried not to act like every note was possibly guiding him
to a premature breaking point.
and just then a dancer entered stage left
seemingly improvising to the strings and flames
and every new angle of her flesh and bones
translated the song into a language
that was like a binary universal code
to be understood by all...
even maybe a god who will finally show face for a thing like this.
and as the man with an unfinished sloppy face
stood to meet the expert motions of her always wishes
and muscles and blood traveling that made him realize his craving
for life, like seeing a hummingbird hover in super slow motion
and for a second believing he too could live like that. could fly like that.
but as he attempted to reach out
he only fumbled and fell and rolled around hoping to be something else
that would be enough for her and equal.
and maybe it was all part of the choreography
which it must have been
because otherwise why would cameras be watching
making movies for posterity and maybe even art.
or was this reality tv?
or was this a dream?
then the singer setting the tone seemed to be watching on
and the dynamics became that of an age old love triangle
in purgatory circus
hanging on with desperation
not wanting to let go and find out
where the end would lead.
even as the string quartet
finished the song
the singer continued
in acapella free style lingering on a slightly off key madness.
as the dancer and man-clown continued with her
the camera rolled on steady all in a single shot
taking everything in.
over shoulders
extreme close-ups
two shots not sure if they want to be singles
or maybe even a three shot.
the man-clown stopped trying to reach the heights
the dancer stopped moving only to reveal she actually had wings
the singer stopped singing at last
and entered into the breast of the dancer who collapsed her whole
wing span around her
as the man-boy-clown watched for a moment
then walked away back to the mirror
and began to scrape off the make up
to a level of not clean, but only distortion
that brought himself at last to where his truth was in that time
of giving up everything he thought he wanted
as he still tried to pretend the camera wasn't rolling
on this auto-biographical dream ballet
that actually had no meaning at all,
besides the meaning of getting to the next moment
through a path of art, love, and letting go of the last moment
that will always be remembered
for awards at foreign film festivals
and that will have to be enough
as they all pretend to relax at the first screening
hearts racing
watching carefully and sometimes looking down instead.
not because they were scared or embarrassed
but because they almost couldn't take
the realization that the scene that clicked before them
from light over their heads
was more alive than everything they have done in between the lines.
and while the audience applauded and praised
they had already made their exit
and found themselves in a bathroom stall
fumbling and dancing and improvising
a silent song that would never be sung again
and there were no cameras this time
so they knew it was real
as they went their separate ways
to meet the press
and smile
and pretend
like it was all a show
and not their own private stop motion love virus
that no camera could capture...ever.
and ever and ever and ever
they would ache to return
but in old age may only sit
watching this memory back on the late show
with popcorn and wine and dancing and touching
with only themselves alone
wondering if the others are doing the same
and if they should call
and find each other again
to say goodbye
one more time